


Number Beats Date

by Aedyn



Series: The Martian - Love & Angst in Space [2]
Category: The Martian (2015)
Genre: F/M, Fluff, Romance, Series
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-03-08
Updated: 2018-03-08
Packaged: 2019-03-28 10:29:13
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,636
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13902132
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Aedyn/pseuds/Aedyn
Summary: After being safely back on Earth a few years, Lewis and Watney declare victory in a strange competition.  Nothing but fluff.Another short piece in my series exploring a relationship between Lewis and Watney.





	Number Beats Date

**Author's Note:**

> As always, I know this pairing isn't super-popular, but I really am enjoying exploring it. So, hopefully those few of you who are reading, enjoy. Kudos, comments, critique always welcome. 
> 
> 2/14/2019: On second thought, decided to leave the sex out of this one and just have it be the fluff that it is!  
>  

Lewis sat on the couch in her living room staring absently at the tv, legs crossed beneath her as she waited impatiently.  She glanced at her watch and let out a heavy sigh.  The situation was deteriorating quickly.  How could it have come to this?  How could so much, hinge on something so small, so insignificant? 

“Get a hold of yourself, Melissa,” she ordered herself sternly, clenching her fists in an act of defiance against this feeling she couldn’t control, but it didn’t last long.  Her skin was itching, her head ached, and she felt restless.  “I’m not going to make it,” she muttered, burying her face in her hands.  Her ears perked up, and she lifted her head hopefully when she heard the door open and close.  There were hurried footsteps as Watney rushed into the living room with a big smile on his face, though she could see a bit of panic in his eyes. 

Reaching into the paper bag in his hand, he pulled out a pint of orange sherbet and set it on the coffee table in front of her.  “Is this the one?”  Seeing her face fall, he knew she was about to protest.  He held up his hand to stop her.  “If not,” he said and pulled out a different brand and set it down, then yet a third brand, “hopefully, it’s one of those!”

Lewis grinned and nodded excitedly.  “Yes!  Yes, the middle one!  You’re amazing.”

He handed her the container and smiled triumphantly, obviously quite pleased with himself.

She looked at the container in her hand and then back to him, then back to the container and back to him.  The look on her face only became more annoyed as Watney stared at her helplessly, not to mention her hand was starting to freeze.

“I… uh… what?” he stammered with a shrug.  His mind raced to figure out what he had done wrong.

“Spoon, Mark.  Spoon.  Do you want me to eat with my fingers?”

He clapped his hands together.  “Gotcha.  My bad!”  He rushed into the kitchen.

“And a towel,” she shouted after him, “this is freezing!” 

He quickly came back with a spoon and a towel.

She nabbed the towel from his hand and wrapped it around the container.  Then she pulled the lid off, tossed it on the coffee table, and took the spoon from him.  Her eyes closed, and she smiled with deep content and her entire body relaxed as she took the first delicious bite.  Disaster averted.

“You. Are. My. Hero,” she said.

“Me or the ice cream?” he asked uncertainly.

She opened her eyes and stuck her tongue out at him.  “You, of course.  Though this,” she held up the container, “is in a very close second.  Better stay on your toes, pal.”

Watney turned to look at the television, which she hadn’t really been paying attention to.  It was a countdown to the launch of the Ares V, which was less than thirty minutes away.  “You wish you were on there?”  He motioned to the tv.

She looked at him, studying his face, trying to figure out the same thing about him.  “Just a little, but I’ve got more than enough adventure ahead of me here on Earth.  I think I’ve had about enough space.  I’m not sure I could go through it again.”

“Oh?”

“I mean last time I went up, I came back with you,” she said and shrugged.  “Lord knows what I’d come back with this time.  Interstellar black plague or some such nonsense,” she said as seriously as she could but then burst out laughing.

He feigned a hurt expression.  “Glad to know that on the scale of things that are awful I rate just above Black Plague.”

”The difference is I love you,” she said.

“Well, I did promise life with me wouldn’t be boring,” he reminded her.  

She nodded in complete agreement.  “That is very true.  You certainly lived up to your own hype.  But you really have no desire to be on there do you?”

“Nope,” he said simply.  “I am happy right here on Earth.  Can’t believe Martinez is going back or that his wife let him.”

“Well, Martinez was always a little crazy,” she said.

He pulled his phone from the pocket of his jeans.  “Have you seen Beck’s texts?”

She shook her head.  “No, I left my phone in the bedroom and haven’t been able to convince myself to go get it.”

“Well, he’s bragging… a lot,” he said with a roguish smirk.  “A whole lot.”  He pulled up a picture of Beck and Johanssen’s newborn daughter on his phone and walked over and showed it to her.

Lewis pressed a trembling hand to her mouth.  “Oh my God.  She is so cute.”  She had to try so hard not to cry.  She hated having so little control over her emotions.

“Beck also texted ‘we win’ and a smiley face,” Watney said with a disbelieving shake of his head.

Lewis scoffed, rolled her eyes, and took another bite of sherbet.  “It’s not a competition,” she assured him with a mouthful of ice cream.  “Though if it is, I say number absolutely trumps date.”

“Agreed,” Watney said, dropping to his knees in front of the couch.  He leaned forward, resting his head against the swell of her stomach.  “So, how are my girls?”

She stuck the spoon into the container, and playfully tousled his hair.  “Quite happy, now that we have our ice cream,” she replied.  “Though I was getting worried.  You took a while.”

Watney frowned as he glanced up at her, then laughed in complete disbelief.  “I was gone fourteen minutes.  I timed it!”  Indeed, he had broken more than a few traffic laws to get back in that amount of time.

She narrowed her eyes.  “I’m sorry, Mark ‘space pirate’ Watney, are you six months pregnant with twins?”  She pointed to her stomach emphatically.    

He sat back and raised his hands defensively with an apologetic look.  “No, Commander, I am definitely not.”

Lewis chuckled.  She always found it cute when he was in trouble and fell back on calling her ‘commander,’ as if being adorable could get him out of trouble, which in truth it often did.  “Well, I am!  And this is your fault.”

He arched an eyebrow.  “How do you figure?”

She sighed in exasperation.  “I don’t know.  It’s just easier to blame you.  Can’t you let me have that?”

“You were the one who said, ‘I want to have a baby,’” he said.  “Not that I disagreed.”

“’A baby.’  But no, you had to go above and beyond as only you can,” she said with a wry grin.  “Text Beck back and tell him two is more than one, so we still win.”

He stood up, leaned down and kissed her forehead.  “You got it, babe.  Whatever makes you happy.”

“But tell him to tell Beth ‘congratulations!’  What’s her name?”  She suddenly looked at Watney, terror on her face.  “They better not have picked one of ours!”

Watney laughed.  “Wow, I would not want to piss you off right now.  But no, it’s Katie… drumroll…,” he drummed his fingers on his thigh, “Melissa Beck.” 

“Melissa?” she asked curiously, her eyes tearing up.

He smiled and nodded.  “After you.  That’s how important you are to everyone.”

Her cheeks went red, her lower lip had a slight tremor, and then she did cry.  Dropping her ice cream in her lap, she covered her mouth and nose with her hands.  “I can’t believe they did that for me.”

“Hey, hey,” he said, trying not to laugh as he wrapped her in a hug.

“I guess we can let them win,” she said, burying her face in his shoulder.  “Why am I crying?  Stupid emotions.”

Stroking her hair, he kissed the top of her head.  “I know.”

“Does this mean we have to change our names to Chris and Beth?  I guess Chris can be a girl’s name?  And I hate to admit I’m not a huge fan of the name ‘Beth.’”   

He sat down on the couch beside her and wrapped an arm around her.  “No, no, I don’t think so,” he assured her.  “I like the names we already picked.”  He laid his free hand lovingly on her stomach and kissed her temple. 

She rested her head on his shoulder and wiped her eyes with the sleeve of her sweatshirt.  “Yeah, they are good,” she agreed and picked up the container to take another bite. 

“Beck, keeps asking what we’re going to name them.  I told them they have to wait and find out, just like they made us,” he replied.

“When can we go see them?”

“I was thinking later this evening,” he said.  “We could go visit them, see the baby, go out for a nice dinner.”

“Yeah,” she said with a deep breath and a half-smile, “as soon as I can stop crying.  So, probably next week… I’ll be ready.”

“That’s my girl,” he said.  Tightening his arm around her, he propped his feet on the coffee table and leaned back on the couch.  "Then...," he said, clearing his throat, "if dinner goes ok, we could come back home..."

She turned to look at him, eyes narrowing suspiciously, one corner of her mouth turned up slightly.  "Oh yeah?  Is that what you're thinking?"

He shrugged innocently.  "Not my fault I find you irresistible, and not like I can get you pregnant again."

"Such a charmer.  Still... we'll see, won't we?"  Setting her ice cream aside, she cuddled up against him.  “Please don’t tell Beth I said I don’t like her name.”

 “Your secret is safe with me,” he said, giving her shoulder a comforting squeeze.

 “Now, let’s watch and see if Martinez does something stupid.”


End file.
